


Sphyrniade Down

by mangneov



Category: Cowboy Bebop (Anime)
Genre: M/M, Near Death Experiences, Near Drowning, Pre-Canon, This is basically a glorified sick fic, but with more emotional repression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:41:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28146273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mangneov/pseuds/mangneov
Summary: Jet almost drowns during a hunt on Mars. While he recovers, Spike comes to a realization.
Relationships: Jet Black/Spike Spiegel
Comments: 5
Kudos: 22





	Sphyrniade Down

There are three things Spike remembers clearly from that night on Mars. The night where he'd almost lost his second life.

One. Rolly Agapov was fifty eight years old and her bounty was five million, six hundred and ten thousand. It was the highest bounty they'd gone after. Jet had shown him the numbers, raised an eyebrow in warning, and said not to be distracted by the price tag. 

Two. Spike had reassured Jet that he was not underestimating their hit, and that Jet, in turn, was underestimating the two of them. Spike had been on the Bebop for eight months and they'd been chasing bounties together just as long. He'd liked to think they were a good team by then. Jet was calculating, Spike was headstrong, and they'd managed to brute force their way through enough bounties to have not starved to death yet. 

Jet had sighed, but he'd been smiling.

Three. The water had been viciously cold. Spike, who had had his throat and mouth and lungs filled with water many times before, learned of a new way to fear it. When wrapped in the freezing burn of spring waves, chest heaving as he crumpled under the weight of Jet's body and his own clothing, the surface miles and miles up and growing darker, blurrier, still, he'd been wracked by fear for a death that was not his own.

Everything else was entangled and incomprehensible. Like looking through the world behind a pane of foggy glass.

He vaguely remembered his hands leaving the controls of the Swordfish, Jet's voice around his head and by his ear, the silver shock in the otherwise aged hazelnut of Agapov's hair. But had he miscalculated his shot, or had she? What had registered first: the crashing splash of the Hammerhead nose diving into the water, or Jet's strangled yell as he was dragged under? Had Agapov hit the ground, dead, before or after he'd leapt into the frigid, black depths?

He'd only awoken from shock when the rough touchdown back on the Bebop rustled him. Even still, his eyes had been clouded and his hearing muffled as if in a dream. Jet was splayed across his lap, both of them soaking wet and stuck together in a ship far too small for the both of them. 

Spike had been worried he'd been dead. 

He'd pressed his fingers beneath the man's chin and felt nothing but the ice in both of their veins. Spike had peeled them apart with no small amount of struggle. He'd skimmed his fingertips over Jet's neck, his wrists, his lips, his nose, his eyelids, searching for heat rather than a pulse. 

He'd found it eventually, with Jet's chest pressed to his back in a half-carry that he buckled under almost immediately. He'd steadied himself against the Swordfish, lungs drawing in oxygen greedily to the point of pain. When he'd evened out, and that was being generous, he'd forced himself to his feet and dragged what might've been a corpse back onto his ship. 

Finality had come in the form of collapse in Jet's sleeping quarters. Spike must've been more drenched in sweat than water by that point. Gasping and shivering violently, vision going spotty and blue, he'd freed them of their soaked clothes and buried deep beneath the nearby comforter and into Jet's side. There he'd found his pulse, right where his nose pressed to his icy throat, and had been soothed quickly to sleep by the beat of it.

The next morning, an old friend from the ISSP had landed at their doorstep, Hammerhead in tow. Jet had been the one to make the call, and Spike had blearily watched him, hacking out his own lungs, as Jet struggled and shivered through the transmission. He'd practically collapsed afterwards, and Spike had been the one to let their guests in.

Half naked and swaddled like a baby.

The ISSP guy had brought a physician with him. He'd directed Spike on the couch in the living area. If Spike hadn't been so drained of energy and so, so cold, he wouldn't have let himself been felt up as roughly as he was. 

It was determined he had pneumonia. The physician chastised the astray on the table, and Spike coughed roughly in his face.

After that, they'd disappeared down the hall in the direction he'd indicated with his head. Spike strained to hear their conversation, would have gone with if he wasn't too feverish to sit up, and caught a faint whistle and the hum of conversation before the blood rushing to his head started to make him nauseous and he straightened from hanging over the back of the couch. 

He might've fallen asleep for a minute. He blinked, and then the faces of the physician and officer were in front of him again, one bug-eyed and stern and the other grim and sober. 

A sense of dread had built in him as they'd explained to him the diagnosis, how to avoid causing a collapsed lung or blood clots, how to use the ventilator, who to report to if Jet, despite all precautions, ended up dying. 

"Your partner. He's very close to his end," the physician had said, fingers busy with the woolongs in his breast pocket. 

Spike had been shocked with fear, yelled with his torn throat that he didn't know what he was doing, begged them to just wait a damn minute so he could collect this thoughts. 

But the physician had just sealed up the ventilator and reminded him that he would be returning to collect it in two weeks time. The ISSP officer, the old friend, had removed his hat and offered his condolences and luck, and made an off handed comment about Jet's tastes before he left too.

And then Spike had been alone, coughing until his spittle began to run red.

:::

The first few days had been rough. 

Spike wheezed through every breath. It seemed he was always shaking, always too hot or too cold, and sweating profusely either way. In the especially unlucky early hours, he'd be slouched against the wall in the lav. 

And yet he'd been the fortunate one.

Jet was always sleeping, but it never seemed like he was resting peacefully. He remained pale, shaking, sweating, breathing like he was being hunted. In the fleeting moments when he was awake, and they were always fleeting, his pupils rolled and his eyelids fluttered and only sometimes could he form five word sentences for Spike to build a conversation on.

Spike had been surprised by how much it had hurt to see him like that. Strong, black dog Jet reduced to a shivering and feverish mess in his bed.

It had clicked in his head, then, why Jet kept him close whenever Spike came back from a hunt more torn up than usual. That first night, after he'd finished adjusting the ventilator, he'd begun pulling back the covers for himself when Jet had made a weak noise of protest, and it had clicked.

"You need to sleep by yourself tonight," Jet had said, slurring through every syllable. 

"It's not fucking contagious," Spike huffed back. It had come out rough and strained.

Jet's face remained slack, but if he'd had the autonomy to do so, Spike was sure he would've raised an eyebrow.

"I don't want to be down the hall in case you start flat lining," he'd muttered, bitterly, like he didn't care. Really, it was as those words were leaving his mouth that it had dawned on him how much the opposite was true. He'd been flustered by the realization. Repulsed.

"Spike. It's fine."

He'd avoided saying _he_ was fine, Spike knew. Didn't because he might've scared Spike off with the accusation that that mattered to him.

So Spike had ignored that, ignored him, and got into bed like it was any other night. Jet sighed but didn't protest. Soon he was asleep, back to breathing like it hurt. Spike stayed up for much longer. He'd settled on his side, faced out. The lights from beyond the door (for once, he'd left it open) touched just under his eyes and across his cheekbones. He'd wanted to turn away, tuck into Jet's shoulder, block out the light and the world for just a little bit.

But his anger and his damaged lungs won out in the end. He'd stayed staring at the hallway light, blank and distant for only himself to witness, until, in an instant, he was asleep.

:::

Food became a problem rather quickly. Agapov would have been their saving grace. Spike had shuffled through the fridge, the freezer, and under a grate for emergency stock. All he'd been able to procure was a can of tuna, two eggs, and a pack of four vitamin bars three months past their due date.

"Normally I'd be willing to risk it, but I'm not sure if _you_ should," he'd said to Jet. He'd brought his findings back to the bedroom, divvied it all up so the eggs and tuna were in one hand and the bars in the other. He shook the egg-and-tuna hand. "You think you can eat yet?"

Jet had made a face. Or he'd tried to, at least.

"This is all we have. I was going to go see what I could get for four hundred woolongs later."

"We had more, last I checked."

Spike rolled his eyes, and instantly regretted it when it made his head spin. "Boating fee."

"Aw, shit," Jet said, and he'd looked like he wanted to say more, but was overcome with a sudden something that had him throwing his arm over his eyes.

"I can get back on bounties by the end of the week," Spike assured him, and then coughed.

"No, Spike-"

"We need to eat something. Doc's gonna be back with a massive bill. I need to get off this ship."

Jet made a vaguely displeased noise. Spike nudged his leg with his foot in mock sympathy.

"Relax. I'm not making you come with me."

"See, that's what I'm worried about." Much to Spike's simultaneous optimism and annoyance, he'd suddenly regained his loquacity. "You're gonna go out, get shot up, and I'm not gonna be able to patch you up."

Spike wondered why Jet still hadn't figured out that saying those sorts of things always had the opposite effect. That they'd lost their impact long ago, and that Spike now knew that he cared too much, and was repelled rather than convinced when he made that clear. 

"Jet, we need to _eat_. This guy's eight thousand. Small fry. You'd let me go by myself any other day. And-" his finger raised from its hold around an egg to halt the incoming protest "-I'm gonna be back in form by then." He coughed. The unsecured egg fell to the mattress.

Jet'd made a frustrated noise, grumbled "shit" like he knew he was running out of arguments, and Spike retrieved the fallen egg and let him stew in it.

"I always hate when you're right, y'know? I don't know if it makes me lucky or not that you're not right more often."

Spike had been unsure what he'd meant. But he'd smiled through it, even though Jet couldn't see him. "Glad you can see reason. Try not to wet the bed while I'm gone."

Jet's frown alone had been smoldering, and Spike had been laughing as he'd slunk off to the kitchen to scrape something together.

A few days later, he'd gone after the bounty as promised. The chase itself went fine and was over quickly. The adrenaline had probably helped in that regard. It was admittedly less clean than the usual hunt; usually Jet was on schematics and Spike did the legwork. But he'd been held in such high regard for a reason in his past life, a reason beyond the clean sweep reputation and the fluidity with which he could take a life. No nostalgia came from reminiscing about that, though, so Spike had collected the reward and ambled off to spend it with his eyes firmly trained on passing signage.

The second he was back on the Bebop, he'd had to make a run for the bathroom. Nothing came of it, nothing came up, rather, but his stomach had tightened and his face had felt hot as he'd spliced together a messy dinner. Jet had compiled a list of groceries but here he was flying blind. Still, hazy and feverish as he was, he'd managed to make a vegetable something. A bit wet and mushy maybe, like a too-solid stew, but it was heavenly to taste something fresh.

Jet had been far more enthusiastic. Still tired, still bleary, but he'd eaten with hardly any complaints. Had even thanked him. Spike had appreciated that. But he'd more so appreciated the return of color to Jet's cheeks and light to his eyes. Later, he'd thumbed gently at Jet's warm, rebuilt cheekbone before he'd scooped up their bowls and headed back to the kitchen.

Jet, of course, had already fallen back asleep.

:::

By the second week, Spike had recovered close to full health. He'd gone after another bounty, twenty five thousand this time, and had celebrated his success with a cigarette because he could smoke again without hacking up his lungs. That and a glass of whiskey, from the bottle they'd bought awhile ago. He hadn't indulged too much, however, had finished them off quickly and in the kitchen, because Jet still couldn't indulge with him. He'd been wistfully watching Spike take drags as he'd been setting up the screen for Big Shot and it'd made him feel a little bad.

Not too bad, though, because the two of them were finally eating in the living area again. 

Jet hadn't grown unfamiliar with the couch. They'd had to take pathetic little breaks sometimes when Spike supported Jet from the bedroom to the lav. 

But it was nice that they were returning to normalcy. They'd eaten a half assed soup, suggested possible heads to run after from Big Shot, and cracked lame jokes about the programming that followed that weren't funny but had them both in stitches anyways. 

If you discounted the coarse tug on Spike's voice, and how Jet's wit had been slightly sanded down, the way that he'd started blinking all slow even though he'd normally be up for a few hours more, and the humming, metallic, elephant in the room, it was just any other night.

Which was why it was such a shock when Jet's condition plummeted shortly after.

Two nights later, Spike had been roused by a low beeping. In the midst of a dream, he'd thought it'd been a voice, and had scrambled half awake for the Jericho under the mattress before things clicked. 

The trigger had not, thankfully, aimed between Jet's eyes as it was. They'd been closed, but Spike was sure he'd known. He hadn't said anything though, might not have be able to, because the ventilator was alerting unstable levels and his breathing was all uneven. 

Spike'd returned the gun to its place and clambered out of bed and over to the machine with his heart pounding. It was a weird sort of state he'd been in. Shaking from adrenaline and blood running through him fast, but his mind trying to fall back into a passive state. He'd had to sit down on the bed for fear of losing his balance. 

"Couldn't have left a goddamn manual," he'd mumbled to himself.

Jet had grunted something incoherent.

"Your fever back up?"

"Fucking hot," Jet croaked, which was confirmation enough. 

Spike sighed and gave the numbers a once over. He couldn't really tell what they meant, but the peaks and valleys of the graph were erratic for respiration and cramped for heart rate.

"I'm gonna get a towel. This thing's supposed to help even you out."

" _J'en ai ras le bol..._ "

Spike hadn't been able to translate it, never was, but his tone had left little to the imagination.

When he'd returned with a bowl of cold water and a towel from the shower, the beeping had mellowed. Jet was drawing in deep, heavy breaths and staring at the ceiling in great concentration. Spike kicked the door fully open and left the lights off. He'd propped Jet up against the wall with a pillow at his back and handed him the towel and bowl. 

Jet was running the towel down his neck when he spoke again.

"Spike. Hey."

Spike looked up. He'd been sitting diagonal to Jet's position on the bed. That far away he'd considered it safe to have a smoke.

"Light me a cigarette, would you?"

Spike blew out a cloud and a laugh. "No way, man. After that?"

Jet had shrugged, and offered up his false hand. "I won't tell if you don't."

He probably shouldn't have, considering Jet had been hyperventilating and sweating something fierce only a few minutes ago. But Spike relented. It could've been pity, it could've been the look in his eyes, it could've been that he just didn't care.

Jet's metal fingers had turned a soft orange from the filter all the same.

He'd only taken a quick drag before he was pulling it away, exhaling with a slight grimace on his face. Spike wasn't sure if he'd wanted to laugh or rip the thing out of his fingers. 

Jet'd studied the cigarette for a moment before his eyes had slid back up, catching Spike's, catching him. 

"Hey, Spike." He was suddenly quiet, somber. It had put Spike on edge. "If things don't work out, you're welcome to sell her, alright?"

His breath had caught in throat. He'd coughed up the next plume of smoke.

"Huh?"

"You're good at hunting and all, and I wouldn't mind if you kept going with my ship, but I'd understand if you fell on rough times and..." He'd waved his hand, sadly, and almost as if in a trance. 

"The hell are you talking about, Jet?"

"The Bebop, Spike."

"The Bebop? Why would I sell the-" It clicked. He'd sighed, suddenly angry. "Oh, you fucking asshole, you can't do that."

Jet had frowned. He'd looked lost. Spike had finally laughed, but his lips had trembled with irritation. 

"You're not gonna die, you idiot. Stop talking like you are."

"It's a worst cast scenario. I'm being a realist."

"You're being a pessimist."

Again, the look of a man who wanted to raise an eyebrow but couldn't.

"They're coming to get the machine tomorrow."

"And the bill. So what?"

Jet's expression had suddenly been unsure. Like the conversation was not going as he'd been expecting. Spike had been internally pleased by it. 

"I'm just letting you know. Didn't mean to make you worry."

"I'm not. Trust me."

Jet'd sighed, clearly frustrated but done fighting the battle. He'd taken a final huff of the cigarette, put it out despite the amount of stick left, and shuffled back to lying down. Spike had watched him do it, and when his own cigarette was closing in on his fingertips, he'd shuffled over and put the thing out on Jet's metal arm. Jet's expression had betrayed nothing but exhaustion. 

"Just go back to sleep. You'll be alive in the morning." 

Only worn out resignation seemed to have won Jet over. His energy had still been coming in short bursts, followed by extreme bouts of drowsiness. 

He'd fallen back asleep frowning.

Spike had checked the time before he followed. It was one twenty seven, and the doctor would be arriving in eight hours to collect.

When he'd faced out that time, it was because he hadn't wanted to look at the only thing deciding Jet's fate.

:::

The air on Io is hot and dusty. Spike's been there only once before on syndicate business. There's hardly anything to do on the glorified rock of a moon. He supposes, though, that that makes it a good place to go for someone on run from the law. 

Jet is two weeks off the ventilator when they get back on bounties together. Spike had been doing fine by himself, but then the Swordfish took a brutal grazing back on Mars and they'd spent the last of the food money on repairs. 

Jet tracked down a bounty to Io and then they were off like they'd never been on a break.

Their performance reflects this as well. The hit is a reclusive art thief, one that is hardly a threat, but his baggage racks the payout into the six hundred thousands. 

They celebrate their success with agua de tuna and chips in the outdoor seating of a quiet restaurant, though all of Io's residency is quiet. Jet also springs for a prickly pear shaved ice, just because he can, which ends up melting into a sugary sweet juice that they trade back and forth.

"God, I really missed this," Jet is saying. He's grinning, and his tongue is going pink.

Spike is thinking that he did too, but he can't bring himself to say so. "Don't get cocky. You just have beginner's luck. You'll get sick of it all over again real soon." It's reminiscent of something Jet had told him once, he realizes, which almost makes it worse than honesty. 

When Jet laughs, clearly remembering, that only confirms it.

"Eh, you're probably right. I'll enjoy it while I can."

Spike nods sagely. His chest twinges with a pain he cannot describe. He takes a sip of the melted shaved ice to try and alleviate it.

"What d'ya wanna do after this?" he asks.

Jet looks thoughtfully out to the street. "Well, first I was thinking we could head to Ganymede to look for jobs. But then I realized I was kinda sick of water. And when we landed this morning I thought of Callisto next, for some reason, but I think it's just because it's so hot."

Spike is grateful that Jet is looking away because he knows concern must've flashed across his face. He is just as sick of water, and he'd already barely contained his relief when Jet had let him know they'd be heading to this dust bowl three days ago.

"I meant more along the lines of dinner," he says, after a pause that is probably half a second too long.

Jet looks back at him, eyebrow raised.

"I was hoping we wouldn't spend all of the reward right away this time. We could start building a safety net." They both cringe at his choice of words. "Just something in the safe," he corrects.

"Ever the realist," Spike grouses, but then he's back to grinning. "But there's a tapas place, Jet. I don't think I've ever had tapas before. You've gotta treat me."

"Treat you? Why don't you treat me?"

Spike leans in a bit closer. "I let you keep the Braque that guy had."

The flush in Jet's neck deepens. He sips at his agua de tuna. "It's a replica."

"Are you gonna hang it above your bed?"

"I'll take you to get your damn tapas."

Spike plasters on his most shit eating grin. "Thanks, Jet."

Jet just shakes his head and finishes off his drink.

Later, when they're back at the foot of the Bebop, and Spike's down to his fourth button and Jet's got the arms of his flight suit around his waist, Spike gives into an urge and kisses him. It's deep and long but it's not exactly hungry. No, there's something hidden within in that almost scares Spike, even though he's the one initiated it that.

When they pull apart, Jet smirks. "And what was that about?"

 _It was a thank you,_ Spike thinks, heart skipping. _It was a thank you for giving me my second life. I'm so sorry I almost lost you yours._

"Just needed it," he says instead, all suggestive and low lidded. "Let's get inside. I'm burning to death out here."

"If it's too hot, you can always strip down."

"Only if you do too." He slides his arms further up Jet's shoulders, who just shakes his head with a half-smile that hides just as much as it reveals.

"After you then, cowboy."

Spike humors him, and it's one of the only times in the span that they know each other that he's ever truly glad Jet followed him. That's sort of sad, he'll realize, years later. 

But in the present, he couldn't be happier.

**Author's Note:**

> French speaking Jet is a headcanon spawned solely from Ganymede's page on the wiki, which claims it was modeled after Marseille. What he said, if you were wondering, translates more or less to "I'm so sick of this".
> 
> Thanks for reading! As with all my late night postings, this fic is subject to corrections and minor alterations in the future. If something is glaring, feel free to point it out in the comments.


End file.
